There But For You Go I
by CitrusCactus
Summary: Adventure/02/tri: A character study of Maki Himekawa at various points in her life, inspired by and belatedly written for Makinishi Week 2018 on Tumblr.
1. Chapter 1

**There But For You Go I**

* * *

 **Fandom:** Digimon Adventure/02/tri  
 **Genre:** Drama  
 **Summary:** A character study of Maki Himekawa at various points in her life, inspired by and belatedly written for Makinishi Week 2018 on Tumblr.  
 **Rating:** K+  
 **Warnings:** None.

* * *

 **Chapter One (Prompt: When They First Met)**

 **August 23, 1991.**

It's bad enough that Maki is on this field trip. _Tokyo Tower, big deal_. It's not as if she hasn't been here before. She wishes her school would take them someplace new and exciting, somewhere... _different_. Not here; hot and uninteresting and absolutely teeming with people. She weaves past chattering student groups and gawping tourists toward a less-trafficked corner of the observation deck and looks through the scuffed and dirty window. The city boils around her in an endless, shimmering cloud. _A mirage._ She looks down through the glass floor, the distance between her feet and the ground stretching beneath her like the gullet of some huge, ravenous animal. _I wonder what would happen if it decided to swallow_...

"Hey!"

"Sorry about that. Wasn't looking where I was going." The boy who ran into her is sprawled gracelessly on the floor, knocked off balance by his own momentum. His fingers card apologetically through a mop of unruly hair. His expression deferential but barely fazed, as if to say this sort of thing happens to him all the time. Maki regards him in frosty silence. _How stupid do you have to be to run into someone who's standing still?_

She continues to watch him as he stands, his goggles ( _who wears goggles?_ ) flashing in the late-morning sun. She thinks she recognizes him. He's from her school—same grade, different class—which causes her to bite back the harshness she wishes she could voice aloud, instead forcing herself to respond to his apology. "Don't worry about it," she says. _Boring._ Maki leaves the window and makes her way to the elevator. She remembers there's a convenience store near the base of the tower, maybe she'll get a drink in order to pass the time...

"Name's Daigo, what's yours?" The boy has followed her into the elevator, along with a handful of other kids she doesn't know. The doors slide closed behind them and suddenly she's left without an exit. He's smiling at her. His face is open and friendly, and once again she finds herself standing on the precipice between _want_ and _should_. More than anything, she wants to take the plunge and tell him it's none of his business.

She opens her mouth.

It's bad enough that Maki is stuck here. Stuck in this elevator, in this city, in this world, in this life. It's bad enough she always feels like something's missing, like some grand adventure is waiting for her, just out of reach. And then—

And then, the elevator gives a sickening lurch. Everything goes dark, right before the buttons on the console start to flash and five pillars of light crash down on their heads like a wave. Maki feels her feet leave the floor and looks up just in time to see the gigantic hole that seems to have ripped the sky and ceiling apart, pulling her into its center alongside this boy and three complete strangers. And even though she's terrified, there's still a small part of her brain that is able to think, as the world upends itself and pitches them headfirst into the unknown.

 _Finally!_

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

[1]. Wanted this part to be set in August, at a time when Maki and Daigo could have been 11 years old. I might fuss with the year if it turns out I miscalculated for some of the later chapters.

[2]. No particular reason for Tokyo Tower, other than I wanted a famous landmark and I was thinking about Magic Knights Rayearth. But I think Sora and Mimi went here too, so happy accident.


	2. Chapter 2

**There But For You Go I**

* * *

 **Fandom:** Digimon Adventure/02/tri  
 **Genre:** Drama  
 **Summary:** A character study of Maki Himekawa at various points in her life, inspired by and belatedly written for Makinishi Week 2018 on Tumblr.  
 **Rating:** K+  
 **Warnings:** None.

* * *

 **Chapter Two (Prompt: Digimon Adventure Zero)**

 **Unknown day, unknown year. Day 17 of Digital World Adventure.  
**

Maki realizes something a few weeks into her stay in the Digital World: _I understand this place._

It's not so difficult, really. It's just like a video game—the ones she watched her brothers obsess over and that her parents never let her play. She and the other four had been told where they were and why they had been brought here by the man ( _was it a man?_ ) in the white cloak almost as soon as they arrived. The rules of teamwork, monster care, and evolution had taken a bit more time to master, but Maki had alway considered herself a quick learner. Now was mostly about the follow-through—and yes, while she admits this world could be _a bit_ dangerous at times, its quirks and incongruities seem to follow a kind of storybook logic that make a great deal more sense to her than the senseless and annoying rules handed down by grown-ups back home.

 _Girls shouldn't get their clothes dirty._

 _Girls don't want to play with dinosaurs._

Her fingers trace absentmindedly over the beveled edges of her digivice, the planetary symbol on its screen pulsing in constant, reassuring rhythm. _Be the hero, take care of your partner, collect the Cardinal Digicores, protect them from the bad guys_ , she repeats to herself. The rules of _this_ world, the ones she'd much rather follow. _Be the hero._ Everything is so clear here. Everything is so _free_. The Digital World contains everything she never knew she wanted.

Especially Bakumon. Bakumon is _perfect_. Maki was cautious at first, when the five of them arrived and there were these weird pint-sized monsters careening towards them. But the way Bakumon looked at her and what she had said filled a space in Maki's heart she didn't even know existed, and from then on, it was like a switch had been flipped in her brain. _Maki, Maki, you're here! I've been waiting for you._

A sudden gust of wind snaps her back to the present. The desert air has turned hot and fitful, despite the fact that the sun's barely risen. She resumes her scan of the horizon. As much as she enjoys her time alone with Bakumon on these morning scouting missions, the others are depending on them. Through Daigo's goggles, she spots a distant cluster of buildings where the sand dunes give way to dusty, barren hills and a further-off mountain range. She squeezes the plates on Monochromon's back between her knees, half to get her partner's attention, half to appreciate the diamond-hard proof of their bond, and once again come to the giddy conclusion that all of this is real— _real_ , and somehow not a dream.

"Do you see anything, Maki?"

"Yeah, there's a village or something over there. Let's go back and tell the others. If we get moving soon, I'll bet we'll be there by midday."

"Sounds good!" Monochromon turns to lumber back to the small cave they all used for shelter the previous night. The next time her partner speaks, Maki can hear the smile in her voice. "We make a great team, don't we?" Maki grins wide and slaps her back in affirmation.

Since coming here, Maki has seen landscapes, vistas, an entire _world_ composed of ones and zeros. Almost everything out there is a zero.

She and Bakumon are ones.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

[1]. "Cardinal Digicores" are (as far as I know) not a real thing in Digimon lore, but I figured the first part of their quest would involve some collectible MacGuffins, so I came up with the term. "Cardinal" since each of the Soverigns rule over a quadrant of the Digital World having to do with the cardinal directions, and "Digicore" since each of the Soverigns have 12 of these surrounding their bodies, which are indicative of their power (and are apparently analogous to souls). I like to think of them them being scattered about the Digital World for the kids to find kind of like the Crests and Digi-Eggs were, but who knows.

[2]. You can't have an adventure in the Digital World without a bunch of kids trekking through a desert. You just can't.

[3]. I don't think Bakumon's Adult/Champion form is officially given, but I used the Digital Monsters Almanac to create a list of possibilities based on what Bakumon can officially evolve into and what Megadramon can officially evolve from, then picked my favorite. I like dinosaurs (though for the record, one of the other possibilities was Leomon... I just couldn't).


	3. Chapter 3

**There But For You Go I**

* * *

 **Fandom:** Digimon Adventure/02/tri  
 **Genre:** Drama  
 **Summary:** A character study of Maki Himekawa at various points in her life, inspired by and belatedly written for Makinishi Week 2018 on Tumblr.  
 **Rating:** K+  
 **Warnings:** None.

* * *

 **Chapter Three (Prompt: Childhood as the Chosen Children)**

There were words, followed by a flash, a death, a cry, and a heartbreak. And just like that, the adventure was over.

Three years later, the injustice of it still makes Maki want to scream.

 **Light is born of darkness.**

She had been able to pretend for a while. She never told her parents, brothers, teachers or friends what had happened ( _How could I? Time passed differently there, everyone thought we were stuck in an elevator_ ). To them she appears much the same, save for being a bit more subdued, and a bit more prone to anger. But it becomes harder and harder to maintain the facade the older she gets. Jr. high is particularly difficult; she detests every change outside of her control. _Why hadn't she and her partner been Chosen?  
_

 **Darkness sails north to become water.**

She would do anything to see Bakumon again. Sell her soul, turn back time… even confront the roiling, twisted thing they left to rot behind the Wall of Fire. Why be afraid of nightmares when there was nothing left to lose?

 **Light sails south to give birth to fire.**

The others are there for her for a while, but eventually they drift off, consumed by their own lives. Daigo is the only one who stays, who even remotely understands, a sounding board for her grief. He watches over her and she is grateful, though she does feel a twinge of annoyance every time she asks why he does it and he responds by pretending not to hear.

 **Wind flows in between light and darkness.**

They try together to go back to the Digital World. To contact the Man in White, the Sovereigns, the entity that possessed her—anything on the chance it will be first in a long line of steps that brings Bakumon back from the dead. But it's a children's game, a fool's errand (she knows), and when Maki admits she's sick of the pretense Daigo drops it and doesn't bring it up again. He hasn't been able to feel a connection with Baihumon ever since they came back from the Digital World, he confesses. She can tell it eats at him, if only a little. But secretly Maki is glad, because she doesn't think she could bear to be around him otherwise. It meant the two of them were alike, in a way.

 **Light sinks into darkness and returns to earth.**

Her digivice sits like a dead thing in her pocket, a useless lump of plastic and metal. She hid it for a time, in various places: home, school, buried in a hole she dug in the park. She hoped she would forget about it, that the raw anguish she feels when she thinks of her partner's sacrifice would fade. It doesn't. But she always comes back for her digivice. She digs it up, clutches it in her fist, rubs the beveled edge until it actually starts to wear down, and lets it remain: an empty vessel, a scar on her heart, the broken key to a locked door she longs to wrest open.

 **The Chosen Ones who hold great power**

Recently she's taken to disassembling it, screw by screw, piece by careful piece, as if looking for answers inscribed on its circuit boards. She reads books on electronics, on digital logic and programming, and begs her parents for a computer of her own so she can figure out how it all works. If the fantastical world of monsters has closed itself to her, she reasons, she might as well embrace the world of reality, of science. She practices patience and diligence, and with time, starts to internalize the rules she once abhorred. _Know your enemies to better understand their weaknesses_ , she thinks. _Then smash through them_. And the more she learns, the more confident she is that someday she will be able to break the rules of the Digital World and reshape them to her will. All to undo the terrible injustice that's been done.

 **Reveal your true nature.**

 _Wait for me Bakumon_ , she whispers to herself often, alone in the dark. _Please wait. I'm coming._

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Co-opting the beginning of _Loss_ for my own purposes, mwahaha.


	4. Chapter 4

**There But For You Go I**

* * *

 **Fandom:** Digimon Adventure/02/tri  
 **Genre:** Drama  
 **Summary:** A character study of Maki Himekawa at various points in her life, inspired by and belatedly written for Makinishi Week 2018 on Tumblr.  
 **Rating:** K+  
 **Warnings:** None.

* * *

 **Chapter Four (Prompt: College)**

 **October 2001**

It's late afternoon when Maki hears the library's access door bang open and the slap of Daigo's sandals as he approaches. She hears him take a seat next to her on the concrete rooftop and notes the hint of concern in his voice, despite his best attempt to sound casual. "Hey, Hime. I got your message. What's up?"

Maki leans back, elbows locked and legs stretched out in front of her. There was no point in sugar-coating what she's about to say. "I've decided to take that job with the Agency," she says. "I start next month."

"I, um—oh." She hears him shift beside her, and without looking Maki can picture the expression on his face—the one that makes him look like a confused eleven-year-old. "Congratulations, Hime-chan. If that's what you want. I mean… I kind of thought you might take it, but I didn't expect things to happen so fast." She steals a glance out of the corner of her eye, and is relieved to see his face has settled back into that of an adult's once more. "D'you mind me asking... what made you say 'yes?'"

Maki doesn't answer right away. She can feel the fine grit of pebbles and debris digging into her palms as her eyes move out over the campus quad stretched two stories below, watching her fellow undergraduates with tepid interest. Not for the first time that day, she revels in the fact that she'll be leaving behind all the petty concerns and trivial dramas that comprise student life.

"Do you remember that show we saw?" she asks at last. "The one about a town that appeared once every hundred years?"

She hears the sounds of Daigo's screwed-up concentration. "Er, don't tell me the name, it was Briga—Briga… well. Briga- _something_." She looks at him then, and he grins back in apology.

"We bought those tickets discounted, on a whim," he reminisces, smiling fondly. "To tell you the truth, I don't remember that much about the show, but there are some things about that night I'll never forget. The restaurant, your hair, your dress… but more than anything else, the thing that I'll treasure forever—" his smile turns suddenly mischievous— "is the sight of you bawling like a baby in the middle of the second act."

Her glare turns immediately to daggers and he raises his hands in mock-surrender. "Sorry, sorry! You can't blame me, though. I've known you almost my whole life, but I never knew you had a soft spot for musicals."

She can feel her face soften as she relaxes a bit. Less for the reminder of that _particular_ memory, and more because his joke helps confirm something for her.

"The _town_ ," she reminds him. "Brigadoon. Only existed for one day before disappearing for an entire century. Miss it, and you won't live long enough to see it again. And this job… to me, it's the same. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pursue the career of my dreams. My one chance to go somewhere I truly _need_ to be."

Maki chances another look at him. Daigo's face is sober, and she can tell he's watching her carefully. She's walking a very fine line here, she knows. She needs him to believe her without sensing her underlying motive. Any support he's willing to offer will crumble the moment he realizes this is all about Bakumon, which will cause this—no, _them_ , to end in a fight. She doesn't want that.

 _And yet..._

She feels a spike of cold fury form inside her, even as she attempts to meet his gaze with the look of someone who wants only to be a dedicated career woman, an adult who has moved on. She _resents_ him for this: forcing her to lie, turning her partner into a taboo. She holds on to that feeling, lets it take her where she needs to go. The world she'd been trying so desperately to reach was neatly divided into black and white, ones and zeroes, and for her sake ( _for Bakumon's sake_ ), it was _vital_ that she view this moment through the same binary lens. There could be no more room in her heart for sentiment. She had to keep her cards tightly clasped against her chest, and if he wasn't with her...

A restless autumn breeze stirs the air between them, and thankfully the tension that held his eyes on hers starts to dissolve. "So." Daigo says, turning to look out at the world. His face sober, but free of accusations. "What are you going to do about school?"

"I already cleared it with the Administration Office," she says, taking care to keep her voice as flat as her expression. "I can finish most of my classes online, and take independent study for the rest. If all goes well I'll be graduating next year, same as you."

He nods. "And in the meantime, you're going to be doing a lot of travel… right?"

She shrugs, repeating the words of the recruiting officer. "Fifteen months of training in various classified locations, followed by an extended assignment in the Professor's home prefecture." Then adds, in afterthought, "Tottori."

He whistles, and the note lies somewhere between incredulity and disappointment. "That far? I didn't think anything could tear you away from the city. Given all the digimon sightings of the past few years—"

Her fingers twitch, nails grinding briefly on concrete. She agrees with him, of course, but manages to maintain a neutral expression. "Yes, well. While observation suggests digimon are more likely to appear in more... _populated_ areas, Dr. Mochizuki is researching all aspects of the Digital World. He insists his experiments be conducted in areas with low radio pollution and background EMF, I have to assume he knows what he's doing. But," she adds, in defiance of her own imperative not to reveal more of her feelings than she absolutely had to, "once I'm trained and fully cleared, maybe I'll be doing _more_ than just data analysis. Maybe they'll want me on as some sort of advisor, to share my first-hand knowledge."

His words are supportive, but his expression is tired, subdued. "Yeah. And I'm sure if anyone can convince them, it's you."

They are silent for a time.

The sound of rustling paper jars her back to the present. He's pulled a small, gold-foiled origami sculpture from who-knows-where, smoothing it out and making minute adjustments before holding it out for her to see. She's expecting something traditional, a crane or a delicate flower box, but is surprised to see what looks like a fearsome wingless dragon, its mouth open and long neck craned over its shining body.

"What is it?" she asks.

" _Huanglong_. The Yellow Dragon at the center of the universe. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Chinese mythology lately. I want you to have it." He holds it out in the palm of his hand. "Maybe it'll bring you luck," he adds, in a voice that is as bright as it is fragile.

It's a difficult moment, and for an instant Maki wonders if she can really go through with the thing she called him up here for. Despite everything else, she really _has_ enjoyed these past few months with Daigo. Daigo, who's creative. Daigo, who's well-meaning. Daigo, who overflows with light and hope and ineffectual charm. But she knows (has known ever since he asked if he could be her partner), that no matter what they've done together— fighting enemy digimon, attempting to contact the Digital World, and now, pretending they could ever be anything as ordinary as boyfriend and girlfriend—Daigo was only ever _really_ good at being two things.

 _He's a liability._

 _And a distraction._

"I can't." she tells him flatly. There wasn't much point in sugar-coating, after all. "This— _we_ —it has to end. I have a career to focus on, and I never believed in long-distance anyway."

Daigo lowers his hand. He looks disappointed, but his smile doesn't shatter. Instead, he nods as if he had been expecting it. "Well then, I have a confession to make," he says. "It's stupid, and I've never said it out loud before, but… my whole life, I feel like I've been running to catch up with you."

She blinks, but his gaze is steady, and he continues. "The Digital World, high school, college, career... sometimes I wish you'd just _stop_ for a second, and then I would run up and catch my breath and I could finally just... _hold_ you, and we'd be two normal people for a fraction of a second... but you never seem to give yourself permission to do that first part. You never stop moving, and here you are leaving me in the dust again." He shakes his head and laughs in a self-deprecating tone. "Honestly, I'm not even sure we're running the same race anymore."

 _No,_ she agrees. _We never were._ And here she allows her resentment to spread unchecked throughout her being for a moment, forming a shield and a remedy against his overwhelming _Daigo_ -ness. His partner is alive and well, she reminds herself. A _god_. And here she is, holding on to the one small strand of hope she can find, and fighting not to drown.

She makes to stand. But his hand shoots out, a warm but surprisingly firm weight on hers.

"Maki, wait—"

"Wait?" she asks, resentment boiling into full-fledged anger. " _Wait?_ If we wait, we'll never become the people we were always meant to be."

 _Why do you always have to make things so difficult?_

"I know— _please_ ," he says. "Just… wait. You're the center of my universe. The smartest, fiercest, most capable person I know. Whatever you set out to do, I know you'll do well. And…" he hesitates, then presses on. "I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep chasing the things that are most important to me, in the hopes that I'll catch up to you someday."

There are several beats, opportunities for her to apologize, tell the truth, or push him further away. She doesn't opt for any of them. None of them seem right.

"Well," she says at last, smiling and trying to mean it. "If you're going to dream, you might as well dream big." She finishes standing, and makes her way to the door. "Your future students will be lucky to have you as a teacher. Take care, Daigo."

And that's how she leaves him: staring after her retreating form, watching her go.

* * *

 **Author's Notes**

Yikes! Been going through several major blocks when it comes to writing and consequently have been stalled on this chapter for EVER. Also, Makinishi Week was two years ago? Uh. Well. I still think about them a lot, so here are some things I was pleased to have come together in this chapter:

[1]. I was originally going to have them discuss the events of August 3 1999/Our War Game in more detail, but couldn't find a way to fit it in. I think "being in college" is a pretty good excuse for not being able to witness the goings-on around Odaiba first-hand, but maybe they were able to watch the OWG fight on the Internet with the rest of the world.

[2]. Daigo is a shorts-and-sandals-all-year-round type of guy. No I do not accept criticism on this.

[3]. Good job if you spotted it, but fun fact: this fic is named after a song from the musical Brigadoon. While I do like to entertain the thought of Maki actually having a secret soft spot for musicals, this one in particular is Incredibly Relevant, so it's became a bit of an inspiration for how to approach writing this fic. The idea of finding and losing a mystical place (that, spoiler alert, can be found again with the power of Love) is exactly the sort of fairy tale Maki would be moved by and want to believe in with all her heart.

[4]. The origami dragon Daigo makes is, of course, a reference to Huanglongmon/Fanglongmon, the "fifth" Digimon Sovereign, which, like all the Sovereigns, is inspired by the Four Symbols of Chinese mythology. The yellow dragon represents the element of earth, quintessence, and the changing of the seasons. Huanglongmon "transcends good and evil, and is called the _Taiji_ [Great Absolute] of light and darkness." Obviously I'm operating in the realm of headcanons and speculation here, but I'd like to think that's significant.


End file.
